Ah! Blueberry season in South Haven. Think about it! Blueberry season. It starts just after the Fourth of July and continues through the end of August, sometimes lapping over into September.
What are your blueberry memories?
Did you and your family go to a local farm to hand pick your berries while you savored the thought of blueberries on ice cream, of blueberries in muffins, of blueberries in pie and in jelly?
Did you purchase your berries by the pint, by the quart or by the five and ten pound boxes at the farmers’ market or farm stand?
Did you visit The Blueberry Store, Barton’s Farm Market or other farm store to stock up on blueberry syrup, blueberry jam and other treasures?
Did you go to the annual Blueberry Festival in South Haven to see the parade or watch—or event participate in—the blueberry pie eating contest?
My most vivid blueberry memories are of tagging along with my dad to Wright’s U-Pick field (now True Blue) at the end of that long stretch of blueberry plantations on CR-215 between Grand Junction and North Lake. Back then that stretch was also lined with tiny one room wooden houses for the workers who came up from the deep south each summer to pick the berries. That was what the Tiny-House Movement looked like in the 1950s. Except that these were bare basics instead of designer. And each structure housed large families with bunches of kids.
I remember seeing those families through an opened car window on evening drives with my family. Women clothes-pinning wash on lines to dry. Kids darting around, playing tag or other childhood games. And men sitting in groups on spindly chairs. And if the breeze was just right, I would hear the deep lilt of their southern drawls and wonder what these migrant worker folks talked about after such a hard day’s work. A day in which the entire family, men, women and children worked, picking the blue berries in order to make ends meet.
And I knew it was hard work. My dad loved his blueberries. And he loved giving away boxes full of them to friends, relatives and the Sisters of Charity who taught at St. Odilo’s, our parish back in Berwyn, Illinois where we lived when we weren’t staying at our cottage on Munson Lake. So we picked A LOT OF BERRIES!
My dad and I (and sometimes my brother and my mom too) would park the family’s Dodge (always a Dodge) next to the U-Pick shack (no pretty white farm store complete with jars of blueberry jam and Sherman Ice Cream back then) The shack was manned by a rotund husband and wife couple who lived in an old trailer next door. The couple would banter with us about the weather, usually hot and sultry that time of year, as we gathered up multiple white pails and put them in the trunk of the car. Then we’d drive along the bumpy road to the right of the field all the way to the back and away from the bushes next to the main road. Those bushes were for the amateurs. And if the migrant pickers were professionals, then we were definitely semi-pro.
My dad would line up the pails, each with a rope attached to its metal handle in the shade next to the car. Then he’d securely attach a pail to his waist and make sure I did the same. And off we’d go, wading into bushes much taller than I was in search of our own plump blue treasures. It was my dad who taught me the proper way to pick those berries. Not one by one or with a jerking motion that caused more green and not quite ripe berries to fall into the bucket than ripe ones. And no eating more berries than you picked! That was for amateurs! No, the proper way is to bring a branch laden with mostly ripe berries over your pail and gently finger the berries in a feathering motion that allows the ripe berries to fall in a cascade and leaves the rest to ripen in the sun.
And did I mention it was hard work? I loved tagging along with my dad. But when we’d pick blueberries, we’d be out there for hours! However, my vivid childhood imagination always saved the day. I remember pretending that I was one of those migrant children, a little girl picking blueberries to help her family survive. I became that little girl, so skilled at picking berries with her family, but also with a vision of going to school and learning other skills that would help my family and myself settle down and escape the migrant life.
And fairly soon, my bucket would be full of blueberries. I would proudly present my bucket to my father who would help me untie the container that hung heavily from my waist and replace it with an empty one. And then off I’d go to daydream my way into picking another bucket and then another and another.
My dad would carefully place each full bucket in the shade next to our Dodge and slowly that row of empty pails was transformed into a line of pails brimming with big, juicy, plump blueberries.
Ah! Precious childhood memories.
Today, I am making new blueberry memories. The migrant workers are Hispanic and if I turn off the air conditioning and leave my car window open I can sometimes hear them speak to each other in Spanish melodies. And one of my Facebook friends alerts us when the taco truck is spotted in this field or that. Now, I usually buy my blueberries in five or ten pound boxes at the South Haven Farmer’s Market or from my friend, Marion, the Pie Lady of South Haven. and Blueberry Festival Weekend is a high point of my summers.
And this year I worked with Lorrie at MBG Marketing The Blueberry People to create a PowerPoint presentation about the history of blueberries in Michigan and beyond.
Did you know that the blueberry is one of the few fruits native to North America and that our Thanksgiving tradition should include blueberry pie along with the pumpkin?
Did you know that the high bush blueberries we grow here in Michigan are the result of the vision the daughter of a New Jersey cranberry farmer, Elizabeth White, also known as The Blueberry Queen?
Did you know that South Haven was home to the Blueberry King? In 1923, nobody was thinking about growing blueberries in Michigan—except Stanley Johnston, the superintendent of Michigan State University’s experiment station in South Haven. Johnston, also famous for developing the Red Haven peach, used his own money to bring in blueberry bushes from New Jersey.
Did you know that by 1936, blueberries were starting to become a big business in Michigan with 13 growers forming the Michigan Blueberry Growers Association?
Did you know that Michigan blueberry growers now work with growers throughout the U.S, Canada and South America? Check the label the next time you purchase a pint of blueberries in the middle of the winter. Chances are you’ll discover that the berries are from a grower in Chile who belongs to Naturipe the same association that many of our Michigan growers belong to.
Ah, food for thought.
But, when I want food for my soul, I return to my childhood roots and to one of our local U-Pick farms. I usually do this only once each season. For now, it is not a necessity, but a pilgrimage. I rope a white pail around my waist and wade into the tall bushes, making sure I am far away from other chattering folks. I enjoy the almost silence bathing in bird song and the rustling of blueberry branches in the breeze. And now, for me, blueberry picking becomes like a meditation. I gently cup the berries in my hands, feather them with my fingers and watch the ripe berries fall like prayer beads into my pail.
I become one with the blueberries and with my memories.
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